


'Cause we could be immortals( just not for long)

by HMB2 (holdmybread)



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Beth loses her title as World champion, Chess, F/M, I Don't Even Know, That's it, This is Catharsis, This is just a calming end, thinking about the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29284677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdmybread/pseuds/HMB2
Summary: Beth loses her title as World Champion.
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts, Georgi Girev & Beth Harmon
Comments: 12
Kudos: 39





	'Cause we could be immortals( just not for long)

Beth has waited three years for this match.  
She sits in front of Georgi with an impassive expression on her face. He’s nervous, fidgets with his hands.  
She would be too, if she were sitting in front of the World champion. She was, when she played Vasily Borgov.  
She looks up from the board, from Georgi’s fidgety hands, to acknowledge him with a soft smile. It’s a completion, of sorts. Everything else would be unfitting. It’s that determination that has kept her World Champion.  
Georgi smiles back at her, hesitant. She wonders if he knows she was distracting him on purpose three years ago. He probably does. She suspects it wouldn’t work this time.  
He opens, his hand no longer shaking.  
She plays, deciding that just because she knows he is better( she’s replayed all of his recent matches) doesn’t mean she won’t give him hell.  
Benny told her to do so, when she left the house.  
They had met at the San Francisco Open( how couldn’t they have?). He stared at her. She stared at him.  
They played each other, of course. They were still the two best players in the US, after all.  
It was after that caught her by surprise. She’d spent the entire time playing wondering if she should apologize, then wondered about what she should even apologize for.  
Benny moved first however.  
“I’m sorry”, he said quietly, so quietly he almost went under in the clapping of the crowd.  
“What for?”, she’d asked, blinking.  
“I lost my temper. You didn’t deserve that.”  
Benny had always been much more in touch with his own emotions, always much more ready to take the high road. That didn’t mean he wasn’t an arrogant bastard. Just that he also knew when he was wrong.  
She disagreed with him anyway, in her mind. She had deserved that, if for different reasons than had broken them apart. She was a terrible friend, a terrible lover.  
But by then the noise had subsided, and Benny had taken his leave.  
She found him later at the bar.  
“I’m sorry too”, she said after ordering a coke.  
“You were grappling with addiction”, he answered,”I was too harsh. I wasn’t thinking about what you were dealing with.”  
She overthinks the conversation as she plays, methodical as ever, against Georgi.  
She’s in a stable relationship now, the first real one in… ever. Benny’s taught her a lot, she reflects. She wouldn’t be this ready to give up her title if she was still the same as she was.  
Now, she’s ready to leave her post of World Champion. It always was more about holding it once than keeping it.  
Benny knows. He’s played Georgi’s games too, and even though he’s the optimist between the two of them, he admitted this would be a very difficult game.  
Georgi has her right where he wants her.  
It’s been 2 hours, and she can see the way it will end.  
"Draw?", she asks, cocking her head. It's a test. Beth never offers a draw. Neither did Borgov.  
Georgi shakes his head, and Beth hums in acceptance.  
She plays her final moves with grace, and lets Georgi pin her. She sticks out her hand. He seems stunned. Then, he takes it, his eyes still wide. He is almost the same age as she was when she started playing in tournaments, a bit older even, at 16. She wonders if she was ever like this, doe eyed and innocent. She doubts it.  
“You are the best I’ve ever played”, she says, nodding.  
“Thank you Miss”, he answers, nodding too. His English has gotten better.  
It’s this, that same respect, that same youthfulness, those innocent eyes, that prompt her to ask.  
“When are you leaving the US?”  
He pauses, blinking and unsure.  
“Tomorrow”  
She cocks her head. A small smile plays across her lips.  
“Would you still like to see a drive in movie? For the true American experience?”  
His mouth falls open, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.  
“Yes, Miss, I would like that very much.”  
She nods.  
“Ask the hotel desk for our room number after the press briefing. Benny and I will be happy to take you, if that’s ok for your agents.”  
It occurs to her that Georgi might not know who Benny is.  
It occurs to her that that would be easily rectified as Georgi’s face lights up like the child he is.  
“Thank you, Miss”, he says, his smile infectious.  
She nods, smiling back.  
“Go on then”, she says, softer,”the press wants to talk to you.”  
Later, when photos of them at the movies surface, when people ask her who the hell she thinks she is, fraternizing with a commie, she’ll shrug in answer.  
She’s Beth Harmon, Benny Watts’s girlfriend, ex addict, and ex World champion.  
She has a lot of titles. She can’t decide which she likes most.


End file.
